Making a phone call is now only the sixth most common use for a mobile phone, a study has revealed. Researchers found that sending and receiving text messages, surfing the internet and even the use of the alarm clock have all overtaken phoning friends or relatives as the most common actions performed on our mobile phones.

In fact almost four in ten people in the UK believe they would manage without a call function on their smartphone at all. The study was commissioned by Hailo, the original taxi app which is now used to find a cab every two seconds, as part of its Future Cities campaign exploring the relationship between our smartphones and the cities we live in.

Tom Barr, CEO of Hailo said: ‘’The functions on a smartphone have developed and improved drastically over the past decade.
‘’With so many ways to keep in touch nowadays, people in the UK are using the functions that are convenient for them.”

Other commonly used functions are the clock, the calculator, the calendar and the ability to online shop.One in seven Brits surveyed claimed that they now book all of their transport via their smartphone, whilst over one in ten use it to navigate around new cities.

Furthermore, one in six claimed that they would be unable to get around an unknown city without a navigation app on their smartphone. Some smartphone users confessed there are apps and functions on their devices that they just couldn’t manage without. Text messaging, using the camera, the ability to online shop and the clock’s several functions were among the functions seen as most essential.

Also on the list were the calendar to remember appointments and birthdays, the calculator and any apps that make it easier to navigate a new city or town.

When it comes to specific apps people in the UK can’t live without, social media, banking and the news are applications that make day-to-day life a little easier.

The research found people in the UK will use their phone for one hour and 52 minutes in total during the average day, making an average of three phone calls.

The average person in the UK will also take two photos, send nine work emails, ten personal emails and check the time 36 times on their phone in a typical day.

In fact, it was revealed people in the UK will use their phone for one hour and 52 minutes in total during the average day for texting, social media, surfing the Internet and reading the news.

And with 20 minutes of this time spent making phone calls, this tells us the function isn’t completely dead. It was also revealed we spend almost eight minutes in an average day looking for and arranging transport for one reason or another. This is longer than the amount of time we spend watching online videos or reading an e-book on our mobile devices.

Gary Bramall, CMO, Hailo, added: ‘’It seems clear that while we use our phones for much more than to make calls, it’s not a function we will be looking to drop anytime soon. There are just so many more uses for a smartphone now, like arranging a taxi without having to press the call button.”

Joe is a freelance journalist who writes news and features for national newspapers and a variety of magazine titles. He studied Economics and Politics at the University of Manchester and also has a Masters in Journalism from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.